Poke Me: Why Barack Obama should give Narendra Modi a visa waiver

Updated: Sep 17, 2013, 02.48 PM IST

Poke me: Why Obama should give Modi a Visa waiver

This week's " Poke Me ", invites your comments on why Obama should give Modi a visa waiver. The feature will be reproduced on the edit page of the Saturday edition of the newspaper with a pick of readers' best comments.

So be poked and fire in your comments to us right away. Comments reproduced in the paper will be the ones that support or oppose the views expressed here intelligently. Feel free to add reference links etc., in support of your comments.

By William Avery

The BJP had only just this past Friday named Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi its 2014 candidate for Prime Minister when a reporter, later that same day, raised his hand at a State Department Press Briefing in Washington to ask, are you "still denying visa to visit the United States?"

The State Department's response - in this specific case "there's no change in our longstanding visa policy" - made it clear that Modi should not book his airline tickets anytime soon. The spokesperson politely added, however that the Chief Minister "is welcome to apply for a visa and await a review like any other applicant."

"Like any other applicant" - for Modi's sake, if only that were true. In 2005 the United States denied him a visa in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots that occurred during his first term as Chief Minister. Specifically, the United States found Modi ineligible under the section of visa law that applies to "any alien who, while serving as a foreign government official, was responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom."

The Modi visa issue is not going away. It will come up again and again in the run up to India's 2014 election, the most important election in the world since the American Presidential contest of 2012. Absent any change in the visa policy toward Modi, we will have the unseemly circumstance of watching this election unfold with one of the two main candidates unwelcome in the United States.

And if Modi wins next year's election? Then the unseemly becomes the unthinkable: "Sorry, Mr. Prime Minister you cannot travel to the United States. But we still want to be your strategic partners. So let's do a video conference instead!"

Through no fault of their own, American policy-makers now find themselves in a bind on the Modi visa. They must find a solution quickly, lest the matter cause lasting damage to Indo-American relations.

The only possible scenario not ruinous for the Indo-American relationship is a Modi defeat in 2014. Sure, that could happen. But are American policy-makers really ready to wager the "defining partnership of the 21st Century" on the outcome of an election?

Alternatively, what if the visa ineligibility remains in place and Modi wins? Are American policy-makers really prepared to wake up in May 2014 with a newly-elected and visa-less Prime Minister Modi? Prepared to go years without reciprocal State visits? Prepared to watch old defence deals sour, and new ones go to the Russians? Prepared to get a busy signal when they call South Block to "urge restraint" during a future flare up along the Line of Control?

Even if the United States would have a sudden change of heart on the visa issue following a Modi victory, it may then be too late. No one could blame a victorious Prime Minister Modi, having been shunned for nine years by the United States, for not placing Indo-American relations at the top of his to do list.

There are no good options here. Maintaining Modi's visa ineligibility could threaten the common interests of 1.5 billion citizens of the world's oldest and largest democracies. Lifting it would insult the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots. Whether Modi was complicit in their deaths or not, the United States has already judged him a violator of religious freedom through its visa refusal. Overturning that refusal, absent significant new evidence absolving Modi, would be an additional injustice to the victims of 2002 and their families.

As a legal matter, Modi is as ineligible for a United States visa today as he was when he was first denied one eight years ago. But Modi is no longer merely a State-level leader, and the visa is no longer merely a legal matter. With Modi a serious candidate for national leadership, the visa has become political. Because it will only get more political as the election progresses, any decision on Modi's visa must be made at the very top, by President Barack Obama himself.

Fortunately for President Obama, there is a way out. When Congress wrote the section of law under which the United States has found Modi ineligible, it allowed the Department of Homeland Security to approve a waiver of ineligibility considering (among other factors) "the positive or negative effect, if any, of the planned travel on U.S. public interests." The waiver is therefore President Obama's to grant if he so chooses.

United States President Bill Clinton faced a similar situation in 1994 in deciding whether to grant a visa to Gerry Adams, a separatist political leader in Northern Ireland accused by the United Kingdom of having ties with the Irish Republican Army and therefore of having blood on his hands. Clinton decided to grant the visa, making then British Prime Minister John Major reportedly "incandescent with rage." Yet history has proven President Clinton made the right call, as the 1994 Adams visa nurtured a reconciliation that brought peace to Northern Ireland four years later.

President Obama now faces a high stakes decision on the Modi visa. Without action he risks the dawn in 2014 of an ice age in Indo-American relations - an ice age that would delight both Beijing and Islamabad. That is why President Obama, after weighing all the considerations, should reach the only prudent conclusion: to hold his nose and quietly grant Modi the waiver.